Empire of the East

by Fred Saberhagen

“If only it would spit out your Stone, as it does sand and rope,” Thomas griped. “But no, it must have a taste for magic.”

  Now that she knew where the Stone was, Olanthe did not seem much worried about retrieving it. She said, “Well, then, one of us must just try to distract the creature, while the other rushes up and grabs the Stone.”

  “Oh, just like that? Your life is not overly important to you?”

  “The Stone is life, to the people at the Oasis.” She looked at him haughtily. “Oh, I will be the one to expose myself to danger and create a distraction. It is my property that we are trying to save. And your plan of lassoing it did not work out very well.”

  The last accusation was undeniable, but he still had not connected it logically to the new plan when he found himself volunteering insistently to create the distraction himself—though if he gave himself time to think about it, he was not at all sure which of the two roles was the more dangerous. The girl couldn’t have maneuvered him into taking the part she wanted him to have, could she? Just that quickly and easily?

  Having rehearsed their plan briefly, Thomas and Olanthe separated, then approached the innocent-looking pool from opposite sides. After an exchange of nods, Thomas rushed forward shouting. In one hand he was carrying his knife, in the other the chewed-up rope, which he had partially untangled. He braked to a halt at the last instant, going down on all fours in the sand. He reached forward and lashed with the rope at the surface of the mirage. It seemed that the trick might work, for the creature beneath began grabbing again at the once-rejected fibers.

  Olanthe was very quick, and her timing perfect. Unfortunately however she fumbled the Stone in the instant of picking it up, and was forced to reach for it again. Looking across from the other side of the pool. Thomas for the first time saw the deadly tendrils of the mirage-plant as they shot above the surface of the illusion, looping and snapping about the girl’s body with marvelous speed. He shouted. He hurled himself around the edge of the pool and plunged into the struggle, slashing with his knife.

  Only when he was enmeshed himself did he realize that, incredibly, the deadly network had not been able to hold the girl, that she was backing away quite free. He had no time to wonder about her luck, for his own was not so good. He was gripped around the waist and head. His blade severed one of the tough, elastic tendrils, but two more snapped around him, their suckers thirsting for his blood. One curled around his right arm, in which he held his knife. His left hand was already caught behind his back. He was sprawled on the sand, only his feet, dug in desperately, keeping him from being dragged to his death. The apparent water-surface had entirely vanished now, as the carnivorous plant devoted its full energy to hauling in this stubborn prey. When the pull of it dragged Thomas half upright again he could see down into the hollow, see the nest of writhing mouths and the white animal-bones between them, where the illusion had shown nothing but a sandy bottom.

  Thomas cried out something. He saw the girl, a look of anguish on her face, reaching into her small pack. Her hand emerged holding a grayish, egg-shaped object which she thrust out toward him. “Here!”

  He had to drop his useless knife to take the thing she pressed into his clutching fingers. It was hard and heavy in his grasp. Before he could wonder what he was supposed to do with it, he felt the mirage-plant’s grip loosening. It was as if his skin and clothing had suddenly developed surfaces of oil and melting ice. In a moment he had pulled free and was several meters away. He lay gasping on the sand while he watched the frustrated tendrils wave about disconsolately and then withdraw.

  Olanthe, the Thunderstone in its battered case still under her arm, came to kneel beside him; she reached out a tentative hand to take back the small gray Stone that Thomas still held; but instead he shot out his own hand and took her by the wrist.

  “One moment, my girl. Bring out yet another Stone and destroy me with it, if you will, but first I will have some explanations.”

  Still, when she made no answer but only struggled silently to pull away from him, he let her go. When he had done this, she was willing to sit on the sand nearby, looking apologetic. “I—I have no more Stones. There are no more.”

  “Aha. That’s something. Yes, that’s good. If it were the Oasis of the Dozen Stones, I don’t know what—” He broke off suddenly and looked up. “The sun is being hidden once again. I take it we may soon expect another thunderbolt?”

  She waved a slender hand impatiently. “Oh yes, of course, since the Thunderstone has changed hands again in coming back to me. But that’s all right. I’ll leave it here on the sand, and we’ll just go a little distance off and wait. Then after it’s been hit I’ll be able to carry it safely.”

  “May I suggest that you leave it at a safe distance from the mirage-plant? So that we won’t have to…hey? And while we sit through another rainfall, you might explain to me the virtues of this other Stone.”

  The clouds were swiftly thickening once more. Thomas and Olanthe, their clothing not yet dried from the previous storm, left the Thunderstone in a gentle hollow between dunes and went a few score paces distant to sit together under the useless shelter of a desert bush.

  She blurted out, “I didn’t want you to know about the Stone of Freedom too. Otherwise I could have simply walked up to the mirage-plant and taken my property back.”

  “Yes, I see that, now.”

  “I’m sorry. Those suckers didn’t draw any blood, did they? Good. Well, now you know our secrets, and I must trust you. We need help at the Oasis. The invaders are—we can’t endure them.”

  “Who can? We may be able to help each other.” The new rain began to fall. Thomas was thoughtful. “Tell me more about these Stones.”

  The origin of the two Stones, Olanthe said, was lost in the past. Since the beginnings of the history of the Oasis the farmers there had possessed them both. The folk of the Oasis for the most part lived in harmony with one another, content to stay half-isolated from the rest of the world, though they had been friendly and hospitable to visitors and exhausted travelers who strayed in from the desert. The secrets of the two Stones had been kept within their settlement.

  The desert soil was rich, lacking only water. And whenever the fields of the Oasis needed rain, he who held the Stone of Thunder at the time would present it to his neighbor; so water came just to suit the farmers’ wishes, and drought and flood were alike unknown. The other talisman, called the Stone of Freedom or the Prisoner’s Stone, was kept hidden, and only the elders of the Oasis knew of its existence. It was of little use to honest men as long as freedom ruled the land.

  Then the foul invaders from the East had come, in force too strong to be resisted. The elders had somehow managed to preserve the secrets of both Stones.

  “Alas, it was my own father who broke the pact of secrecy. Oh, he acted not through any wish to help the invaders, no, the very opposite.” After saying that Olanthe fell silent for a moment, her eyes downcast, rain dripping from the brim of her wide fieldworker’s hat.

  “How, then?” Thomas wiped rain from his own eyes. This was becoming a soggy desert indeed. He felt vaguely cheered by the reflection that a certain mirage-plant might be the first of its species ever to drown.

  Olanthe was looking down at her hands folded in her lap. “The commander of the invaders’ garrison…that is…he wanted…”

  “Something to do with you?”

  “Yes…me.” She nodded, and looked up. “When I was unwilling, they made threats…” She fell silent, until Thomas reached out and took her hand.

  “Afterward—” She had to clear her throat and start over. “Afterward, my father was—he happened to have the Thunderstone in his fields at the time. He unearthed it from its hiding place—”

  The latest bolt came smashing down at the Stone forty or fifty meters away, making Thomas jump for all that he had been expecting it, jarring his teeth and bones anew.

  “—and, pretending to curry favor, he gave it to the garrison commander. My father a
cted as if he was pleased that the pig had taken a fancy to me. My father told him that the Stone had something to do with the Oasis’ rain, but of course he never mentioned lightning.

  “They—they stood talking inside the invaders’ compound, there, in what used to be a park. My father said later that he could hear the thunder starting overhead while they stood there, and he smiled at his enemy, the man who had…and then the commander turned away, with the Thunderstone under his arm, to walk across the parade-ground to his quarters. He never finished his walk.”

  Thomas nodded. He squeezed Olanthe’s hand slightly. She went on: “Next day a soldier picked the Stone up and brought it right to the one who had been second in command, and was now in charge. They knew it was something of magical importance, but they guessed no more than that. Before another storm could break over their heads they had put the Thunderstone into the pouch of a courier reptile and dispatched it to the wizards at the Castle. We knew this because we could see the growing storm follow the reptile out over the desert. We knew the storm must catch up before the leather-wing reached the Castle. It was necessary for someone to go out and recover the Stone, before it fell again into the hands of enemies or strangers. Without it, the Oasis would die for lack of water.”

  “How were you chosen?”

  “A girl can search as well as a man. And others of the enemy would be—would be after me, now that the old commander is dead. And my father would do something else—and perhaps bring destruction on us all.

  “So the elders were willing enough that I should leave, and they gave me the Stone of Freedom, which for its bearer sets fences and guards and all confinements at naught. Now I must return the Thunderstone to the Oasis somehow, and then—I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “I see.” Thomas shifted in his drenched clothes. The rain was thinning again. The Thunderstone had not been moved far by the latest bolt—he could see it, a small dark lump on the sand.

  He stretched out his hand with the Stone of Freedom in it to Olanthe. “The Stones are yours. But tell me, what use are they, what use is life itself, to your people, as long as the invaders are there?”

  She accepted the Stone. “What can we do? What are you getting at? I must take back the Thunderstone or all will perish.”

  “The Oasis can live for a few more days at least without it. And remember this: while it’s there, the enemy may find it, realize what it is, and perfect his power over you.”

  She asked again, pleading now, “What can we do?”

  Thomas smiled. He stood up, just as the sun broke out once more. “I can think of several things. And I know those who will be able to think of more. Come with me to the swamps!”

  VIII

  Chup

  Dazed as he was by the blow on the head, Rolf still had wit enough left to realize that the soldiers thought him nothing more than a thief, who had been trying to get aboard one of the barges in the river. They asked him no questions, and he said nothing at all.

  Feet hobbled and hands bound painfully behind him, he was taken to a command post concealed in trees right by the riverbank. His head throbbing, he sat on the ground and tried to think of nothing. There were too many soldiers for him to have a hope of getting loose, and they seemed discouragingly capable as they went about their routines of duty.

  At earliest daylight the watch was changed. The soldiers who had caught Rolf now tied a leading cord around his neck, freed his legs, and took him up the road to the Castle, tethered behind a riding-beast like some small animal being led to slaughter.

  The journey was not long. The road followed the west bank of the Dolles for a couple of kilometers, joining on the way with other roads that converged toward the pass. Shortly the pass came in sight, with the village and its bridge in the foreground, and the Castle brooding above.

  Crossing the bridge, Rolf raised his eyes to the northeast, looking at the high, distant rocks that only a day ago had hidden him in safety. Now he saw that which deepened his despair—reptiles were on those rocks, and in the air above them, thick as flies on dead meat. And, marching up that slope, like bronze-black ants, a company of soldiers.

  The enemy had found the cave, then. That must be it. Rolf brought his eyes back to the bridge under his feet, hardly aware any longer of his surroundings. He was lost, and all else too.

  Once over the bridge, the soldiers began to relax their vigilance. In the nearly deserted village square they halted, straightening their uniforms, evidently getting in proper shape for appearance in the Castle.

  Rolf stood staring dully at the rump of the riding-beast that he was tethered to, until a movement at the corner of his eye caused him to turn his aching head. The village inn, a two-story timber structure, was evidently still in business, for two men were standing on its porch.

  His heart leaped when he recognized Mewick. There could be no mistake, the lean figure was the same, though liberal streaks of gray in the dark hair had added twenty years of age—added them credibly, when seen above the lined gravity of Mewick’s face. The short cloak and the magic peddler’s pack were gone. Mewick was wearing moderately rich clothing now, putting Rolf in mind of merchants he had seen now and then, who were said to be from far islands in the sea.

  Rolf looked away, holding his face blank. Let him make one blunder now, and Mewick could be dragged away beside him, both to meet some grimmer fate than that of a mere thief. Desperately, Rolf tried to think of some way of passing on to Mewick his new knowledge of the Elephant.

  The porch of the inn was not ten meters distant. He could hear Mewick talking with a rotund man, perhaps the innkeeper, about problems of trade and shipping, the prevalence of bandits. Mewick sounded gloomy as ever. Let him ask something about the soldiers swarming on yonder hill—let him ask something that I can answer yes or no, thought Rolf, and I will nod my head or shake it, enough for him to see.

  But Mewick asked no such thing—dared not, or could not think of a useful question that could be made to sound innocent. Rolf could not either. Tonight when he was in the dungeon they would both think of ten questions Mewick might have asked. Or of some other way of passing information. But at least Rolf knew that Mewick must have seen him—that was something, that his fate was not entirely unknown to his friends. Staring straight ahead, Rolf made one nodding motion of his head.

  The soldiers were ready now, and dragged him on again. Once out of the little village, the road ascended, worn deep here by the daily passage of an army. The walls and towers of the Castle swelled with nearness now. The main gate stood open, the portcullis looking more than ever like the teeth in some vast jaw.

  In an inner courtyard, where the stables were, Rolf’s bonds were taken off, and he was given to guards who wore no bronze helmets and carried no swords, but had only keys and cudgels at their belts. These pushed him into a doorway at the base of the keep, and from thence led him downward over worn, damp stairs. Just underground, the passage became level, dark and narrow. It was lined with cells, separated by heavy grilles of iron. Some of these were crowded with wretched figures while others waited empty, doubtless for the return of slaves who labored somewhere up above. The smell was worse than that of any animal pen that Rolf had ever visited. Rolf was sent with an impersonal kick to join the apathetic bodies in one cell, and the door was made fast behind him.

  The morning light that entered so poorly into those upper dungeons had little better success in penetrating the richly curtained windows of the upper tower. It was not the sun that awoke the Satrap Ekuman today, but voices, quietly excited, just outside his chamber door.

  Blinking, he roused himself in his vast bed. When his concubine of the night, who was curled sleeping like some soft beast at her master’s feet, made a movement that impeded his stretching, he kicked at her irritably. Once on his feet, he wrapped his body in a fur gown, then spent a moment in setting aside the magical defense that guarded the door of his bedchamber from within, before he called out to know whose business brought them to him
at this hour.

  It was the Master of the Reptiles who was passed in by the guards. This Master was a small man, usually phlegmatic in his manner. But his face was now aglow with triumph, so that the sight of him made Ekuman’s hopes blaze up before the man had spoken.

  “Sire, we have found the Elephant for you!” That said, the Master rushed quickly on with explanations, as Ekuman’s expression bade him do—how he had zealously investigated yesterday’s report of a strange rumbling noise, heard by reptiles, coming from under the ground on the north side of the pass. And then birds had attacked troopers, during last night’s maneuvers in that area—

  “The Elephant, the Elephant! Have you news of it or not?”

  “Yes, Lord!”

  At break of dawn the Master had sent hordes of reptiles to those rocks, under orders to cover them centimeter by centimeter, crawling if need be, to find the cause of the strange noise. They had found, first, the entrance to a cave, holding signs that at least one human had recently been there, and birds as well—

  Observing the countenance of his Lord, the Master of the Reptiles swallowed some words, hastily condensing his story further. One reptile at least had seen the Elephant in that cave—a thing of metal, huge as a house, with the familiar symbol painted on its flanks.

  “Very good. You will be well rewarded, if all this proves to be the truth.” Ekuman tossed the man a jeweled ring, in token of more to come. Then the Satrap, half-dressed as he was, descended to the lower level of the tower. Here a doorway brought him out onto the flat roof of the keep, from whence a good view could be had of the country across the pass.

  The Master of Reptiles, basking in his favor, hurried just behind. His other chief subordinates, he knew, would be gathering round him momentarily, as soon as they heard the tidings of the great discovery. And in fact Ekuman had no more than rested his hands on the northern battlement, when there came the sound of many climbing feet upon a nearby stair. Turning, he saw the Master of the Troops coming up, with his officers and aides behind him.